SALT LAKE CITY -- Stepping onto cold tile or hardwood floors in bare feet is something few people enjoy, and some innovative minds at the University of Utah have come up with a solution that leaves slippers out of the equation.
Garred Lentz and Brayden Iwasaki are the co-founders of Sakpants, which they brought into existence with the help of mentors and crowd funding. They said they call their product “the coziest pants in the world.”
“So this is what all the kids are wearing to bed these days,” Lentz said of Sakpants.
The pants are made of a breathable cotton and polyester blend, and the design is patterned after pants worn by fisherman in Thailand. But Sakpants don’t have holes for your feet, sort of.
“If you really need to get to them, they have these access slots, and you can wear them around the house like this,” Lentz said.
While sitting around in sweat pants, Lentz noticed that if he got up and walked around then the hard floors were freezing cold. He said there were never any slippers or socks handy.
“Anytime we wanted to get up and walk somewhere, we'd try to wrap the bottom of the sweats around our feet, you know, which we thought isn't really a good solution,” he said. “So we decided to make pants that didn't have those unnecessary holes in the bottom of them."
Lentz said it started as a joke, but the only person who told him to follow through with it was his childhood friend and now business partner, Brayden Iwasaki—who designed and tailored the first pair of Sakpants.
“Everybody has a million dollar idea,” Iwasaki said. “It's just a matter of if you're gonna actually make that idea happen, try it out, see if it makes you millions--or you die trying to do it. But at least you tried.”
Lentz is pursuing an MBA at the University of Utah, and he said after he pitched the product as part of an assignment the idea gained popularity. So far, they’ve sold about a thousand pairs of Sakpants, largely through a KickStarter campaign and through support from the U of U’s entrepreneur club: The Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.
Lentz said: “The U has been amazing in not only providing funds, but mentorship. Helping in every single way to help anybody, even with the craziest business idea, get it off the ground.”
The collaborations have also kept the Sakpants founders from spending a single penny of their own.
“They help you see, you really only need an idea, some funding and a little bit of guidance,” Lentz said. “Start a business, and you really figure it out as you go along."
Iwasaki said his biggest goal is to increase awareness of their brand, but he said he’d love to see even more success.
“If we can be cooler than a Snuggie, I'll take it,” he said. “But right now we just want to be equal with a Snuggie.”
To learn more about Sakpants, click here.
